[AG-TECH] NCSA Venues and port usage

[Jean Utke]

Brian Corrie wrote:
> I think the only issue is how often would there be changes in the IP 
> number and ports used. Whenever this happens, anyone that has firewall 
> setting that enables AG will need to make changes, which is a 
> significant impact on the community.
I am currently trying to get everybody in a relatively small group of 
people set up with AG clients on laptops etc.
Despite being 'conceptually' easy, it is difficult to explain to 
everybody the varying  bridge  IP addresses and port ranges
AND convince them to go to their system folks to open up these ports AND 
do it themselves on their local firewalls, their
NAT boxes at home etc.  When things change as recently with the Argonne 
bridge's IP address ( even though it is for good reasons)
many "users" will likely  consider it a major annoyance to go through 
the above steps again.
While it is nice for the bridge administrators to have the freedom of 
choosing any port ranges they like this freedom does  not help
"ease of use" for people who expect the AG client setup to be simple and 
don't want to fiddle with network details.
I expect something like a "standard" (shudder!) port range for the 
bridges  would help a lot.
These are my totally uninformed 2 cents.

Jean

-- 
Jean Utke
Argonne National Lab./MCS
utke at mcs.anl.gov
phone: 630 252 4552 
cell:  630 363 5753